Progress Report – Sept 2012

Well, the first month of this project is behind me. It is exciting to be working toward another big goal, to hike one-hundred times and seven hundred trail miles over the next year and a half. I’d like to review what I’ve accomplished, where I am in the big picture, and what I expect to see in the near future.

Accomplishments:

In the last 36 days, I have hiked 75.2 miles on 8 hikes. The longest hike thus far is Hike#4, an overnight backpacking trip where 20.2 miles were covered. The shortest was just 4.5 miles, an evening jaunt out to Oregon Badlands Wilderness for Hike#7. Overall, I’m holding a 9.4-mile average per hike, which is a comfortable lead over the 7-mile average I’m aiming for. I’d like the average to be higher, but more on that in a sec.

The Big Picture:

Here’s two graphs showing where I am in the big picture of things.

The blue line is the target mileage. Stay on the blue line and I’ll get 700 miles by December 31st, 2013. The green line is my actual progression. I’m comfortable with where I’m at: 75.2 miles.

Each pin shows how I progressed with each hike. The blue line is the target. As long as I stay above the blue line, I’ll be on schedule to complete at least 700 miles by 2014.

The graphs above are a little misleading, but I’m working on a calculation to make it more accurate. Let me explain the issue:

I live in Central Oregon at the back door of the beautiful Cascade Mountains. From my town of Bend, I can see Mt. Bachelor, The Three Sisters (Hope, Faith & Charity), Broken Top, Mt. Washington, Mt. Jefferson, and, on a clear day, Mt. Hood. My point is that there are plenty of gorgeous mountains and trails to hike on not far from home… but only at certain times of the year. From about mid June to mid October, the trails are clear of snow and hiking options are a-plenty! However, from November to mid May, most of the trails above 5,000 feet are socked in with snow.

The Near Future:

My plan is to hike as many long hikes (7+ miles) as I can before the snow comes in. If i can get in fifteen relatively long hikes in by October 10th, then I can afford to take shorter (3-6 mile) hikes in the snow during the long winter. I would much rather be hiking on clear trails in mild weather than slogging through a few feet of snow in inclement weather, but I’m no longer living in SoCal so I gotta work with what I’ve got.

So how can I adjust my projected mileage to reflect this? I’m the type of person who will mull on it for a while. Maybe by my next progress report I will have figured something out.